Tag Archives: Philip Yorke I of Erddig (1743-1804)

“Read with much fun in 1911, LMY”. Whether this was meant as a sincere expression – or not – of her appreciation of the “indifferent verse” written by Maria Eleanor Vere Cust, her husband’s cousin-once-removed, Louisa Yorke clearly left one of her trademark comments after reading the volume. “Indifferent verse” is how Maria Cust’s biographer describes the poetry presented in Lucem sequor and other poems (1906), and to judge from an earlier privately printed publication, Songs of sunshine and shadow (1903), the comment is fairly apt. Both works at Erddig are inscribed to Maria’s father, the orientalist Robert Needham Cust, for whom she worked as a secretary. Although the name “Cust” appears infrequently in the Erddig book collections outside the Library, it highlights the continuing connections between the two families. Continue reading →

Quick post this week again – sorry! I’ve just started at Erddig, a few miles across the Welsh border near Wrexham, for a six-week book cataloguing project. I hope to continue blogging about items in the Hatfield collection, but also to post a few images from this National Trust property in due course. Continue reading →